Letter defending Auschwitz Report

ReadySteadyBook's blog has a scoop with the unedited version of the editor's trenchant defence of the publication of Auschwitz Report, co-authored by Primo Levi, following a very critical review in the Observer.

In particular, I like the line responding to the review's accusation that Verso inflated the text to book length "as if short books were somehow immoral". Reading the eligibility rules of the Man Booker Prize, you'd be forgiven for thinking they were!

If there has been any publishing offence against Levi's work, it was in the US edition's alteration of the title from the enigmatic, fragmentary If this is a man (Se Questo è un Uomo) to Survival in Auschwitz. They even manage to put spin on the follow up by changing The Truce (La Tregua) to The Reawakening. Staggering.